The Real Life Oliver Twist Is a Slave

If you went to high school, then someone probably made you read at least one Charles Dickens book. If you're lucky, it was Oliver Twist, the famous story of an orphaned boy who meets and becomes part of a gang of child pickpockets in 19th century London. Almost 200 years after Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, London is still dealing with gangs of child pickpockets. Only this time, they're slaves.

The trafficking of Romanian children to the U.K. for forced begging and pickpocketing has become an epidemic in recent years. In the past 18 months alone, reports of crimes by Romanians in Britain has increased by 700%. And many of those crimes are committed by children, who would never have had the ability to make the trip from Romania to London on their own. So far, police have identified 168 children, ages 7 to 15, who have committed an average of 100 petty crimes each, for a total of about 16,800 offenses.

But these children aren't picking pockets and shoplifting just to feed themselves. They are part of complex human trafficking rings that stretch from Bucharest to London. Each child can earn up to $145,000 a year by begging, stealing, and committing other petty crimes. That money is given to traffickers in the U.K. who control the children and force them to make certain quotas. A portion is often then sent back to Romania, where other traffickers use it to lure more children to the U.K. to beg and steal. To make matters worse, there have been several reports that "social workers" at youth shelters and orphanages are increasingly in cahoots with the traffickers, and are supplying them with young Romanians to enslave.

Sadly, the situation of child trafficking for pickpocketing and forced begging in London is one of those cases of life imitating art, but with a sad twist. Oliver was technically free to leave his gang at any point, but starvation on the streets or abuse in an orphanage were the only other options. And of course, Oliver was a fictional character. These modern-day slaves, the real life Olivers, face beatings, deportation, and even death if they try to leave.

When I was in high school, I had Hard Times thrust upon me as the Dickens de jour. At the time, I thought the title described my experience reading the book. But now I realize it described the world in which Dickens lived, where young children like Oliver got sucked into criminal gangs they couldn't escape from. And 200 years later, it describes the world we live in today.

Photo credit: *clarity*